Slayer released Seasons in the Abyss on October 9, 1990. Their fifth studio album paired the speed of “War Ensemble” with the slower title track, continuing the changes they had explored on South of Heaven while making room for experiments inside the songs.
Writing began shortly after the South of Heaven tour ended. Tom Araya, Jeff Hanneman, Kerry King and Dave Lombardo returned to the studio with producer Rick Rubin in March 1990, beginning at Hit City West in Los Angeles. Work continued at Hollywood Sound and the Record Plant over the following months. The ten-song album moved through warfare, street violence and murder, giving the band material that could be addressed through both fast passages and more deliberate arrangements.
Araya remembered the process as unusually collaborative. In a 2008 oral history first published by Decibel and later republished by Revolver, he contrasted working on these songs together with later sessions where material arrived essentially finished.
That openness affected “Temptation.” Araya recorded a vocal before King explained where he had intended the words to enter. Araya then recorded another take with King’s timing. When both versions were played together for Rubin, the overlapping voices became part of the arrangement. They kept the combination instead of choosing one performance. A disagreement about phrasing had produced a part neither take contained on its own.
“Dead Skin Mask” used another studio intervention to develop its story. Hanneman wrote the music, and Araya approached the lyrics by imagining the mind of murderer Ed Gein, as he explained to journalist Jon Wiederhorn in Loudwire’s album retrospective. Their friend Matt Polish supplied the distressed voice heard in the track. Araya asked him to perform as a child who wanted to leave; the recording was then pitched upward to create that effect.
The subject matter also put the musicians in the position of explaining what those depictions meant. Speaking to Metal Forces in 1991, Lombardo described receiving hostile questions about lyrics written by other members. He understood the songs as scenes presented for listeners to interpret, comparing their approach to filmmaking. “All it is is just an art form of music,” he said. His point was that depicting violence did not make the band’s songs instructions to act it out. He wanted listeners to recognize the distinction between the music’s disturbing subjects and the people performing it.
The title track took Slayer’s visual presentation outside the studio altogether. At Rubin’s suggestion, the band traveled to Egypt to film among the pyramids.
The touring cycle put those songs on the Clash of the Titans bill. Slayer joined Megadeth, Testament and Suicidal Tendencies for European dates in September 1990. In 1991, the U.S. run featured Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax, with Alice in Chains opening.
